Qibli's Monthly Short Stories/February 2020
Information= Update Log *14 February 2020 - redid the chapter numbers, continued chapter 3 *12 February 2020 - finished chapter 2, started chapter 3 *11 February 2020 - redid chapter 2 *10 February 2020 - started chapter 2, added coding *9 February 2020 - finished allegiances, prologue, and chapter 1 Blurb The blizzard has raged for three quarter-moons. No cat in the Clans, not even the wisest elder, has witnessed a storm this fierce and this long. The Clans have bonded together in the deep forests of ShadowClan, where the pine trees give them some shelter from the wild winds. But many cats are losing hope... most already have. The only thing that might save them is trust. Trust in a young apprentice, Sorrelpaw, of RiverClan. She may be the only one that can save them all... |-|Allegiances= RiverClan Leader: Otterstar - dark brown tom with amber eyes Deputy: Smokeheather - pale gray-purple she-cat with yellow eyes Apprentice, Sorrelpaw (black-and-white patched she-cat with green eyes) Medicine Cat: Cloudwillow - pale gray-and-white tom with green eyes Apprentice, Poolpaw (long-furred black tom with deep blue eyes) ShadowClan Leader: Sweetstar - pale ginger she-cat with narrow green eyes Deputy: Dewsky - pale cream tabby tom with blue eyes Medicine Cat: Fernwhisper - dark gray tabby she-cat with kind yellow eyes Apprentice, Splashpaw - dark brown tom with splashes of white fur around his body ThunderClan Leader: Shellstar - tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat with gleaming yellow eyes Deputy: Honeystorm - light golden-brown tom with dark black stripes and brown eyes Medicine Cat: Cloverhawk - brown tabby she-cat with green eyes SkyClan Leader: Smokestar - dark gray she-cat with emerald-green eyes Deputy: Olivebranch - pale gray-brown she-cat with blue eyes Medicine Cat: Copperbreeze - bright ginger tabby tom with white markings and green eyes Apprentice, Tinypaw - small golden she-cat with sticking-up fur and wide brown eyes WindClan Leader: Emberstar - bright ginger tom with stripes of darker red fur and green eyes Deputy: Plumsnow - pale purplish-gray tom with blue eyes and white patches Medicine Cat: Pearblaze - light brown tabby she-cat with blue eyes |-|Prologue= s o r r e l p a w She almost couldn't bear to leave. After every two plodding steps, she glanced back at the ShadowClan camp, the place that had become the home of all five Clans. The place where, she was sure of it, her brother was staring in the direction she had gone, fruitlessly searching for a glimpse of her pelt through the swiftly falling snow. It would be nearly impossible now. The sun's white light no longer shone, even weakly, through the clouds. Darkness covered the forest like a black blanket, and Sorrelpaw's patches of black fur would be invisible to any onlookers, while the white parts of her pelt would be dismissed as fallen snow. She shook her head angrily. Why was she even doing this, padding away from the only true family she had known since she was a kit? She and Cloudwillow knew that sending her off into the blizzard would do nothing good for the Clans. It was something to keep their hopes up, to help them hold on to the will to survive. Sorrelpaw knew how to survive in the forest. She and Poolpaw, her brother, had been abandoned as five-moon-old kits by parents born to ShadowClan, and they had had to find food for themselves. It wasn't easy figuring out how to hunt at that young of an age, but Sorrelpaw had found ways to trap mice instead of directly catching them, and she and Poolpaw had learned to live with bellies only half-full. When a RiverClan patrol found them, she had quickly realized the benefits to cooperation. Sorrelpaw loved her life in RiverClan, so much better than stumbling around the borders of Clan territory with only her brother for company. Not that Poolpaw wasn't a good cat to do that kind of thing with—he was probably the cat Sorrelpaw would have chosen to take with her on this journey, if she'd been allowed to choose someone. (She hadn't been.) But Clan life was wonderful. She had Clanmates. She had friends. She had family. Now she was leaving all of that to go on a mission that would give nothing to the Clans but false hope. An expectation of salvation from the endless snow and ice that the storm provided more of every day. She turned her head up to the darkening sky. She could not bear to face either the cats that had sent her on this pointless mission or the long, cold path winding ahead of her, waiting for her frozen paws to set footprints into its snow-covered surface. |-|Chapter One= p o o l p a w "Poolpaw, you can trust him," Cloudwillow was saying. Poolpaw buried his face into the frozen ground, shielding his eyes from the dirt. He was tired of Cloudwillow introducing him to "cats he could trust." When the blizzard ended, all the Clans would have to go back to their territories, right? And then Sorrelpaw would be the only cat he could really rely on. Sorrelpaw and Cloudwillow, maybe. When the blizzard ended. Every cat was treating that time like a day of miracles. The snow would just suddenly melt and the prey would zip out of their holes and no cat would go hungry. And Poolpaw couldn't really blame them, because he thought the same thing. He pushed himself farther into the floor of the medicine den. His mind was confusing itself. What was wrong with him? Why did he need Sorrelpaw to keep him straight? “Poolpaw.” Cloudwillow’s voice had grown sharper unexpectedly. “Poolpaw, stop being disrespectful and sit up.” Who could he possibly be disrespecting? Poolpaw rolled over and would have fallen over in shock if he hadn’t already been lying down. The WindClan leader, Emberstar, was staring perplexedly down at him, head tilted. His mouth pressed into an undecipherable line and his emerald green eyes, impossibly bright against his orange fur, focused directly on Poolpaw’s deep blue ones. “I—” Poolpaw stammered, seemingly unable to move, to scramble up and dip his head like Cloudwillow was furiously signaling him to do. "I—" He should apologize, he knew, but his mouth would not form the words. “Poolpaw, you have been missing your sister?” Emberstar asked before he could say anything. “Er—” Now Poolpaw was the one staring. What could have possessed Emberstar to cause him to ask such a thing? None of the leaders except his own, Otterstar, had ever shown any interest in him, the little apprentice of the RiverClan medicine cat. If he became more well-known because of Sorrelpaw’s departure, surely that could not have inspired any cat to actually inquire into his well-being? “I thought I might provide you with some cat to talk to,” Emberstar went on as if Poolpaw was not standing there frozen with shock and confusion. “My brother’s daughter, Yarrowpaw, has been longing for a friend, and I think she might be a good match for you.” Poolpaw decided not to dwell on the uncomfortable thoughts that Emberstar’s use of the word “match” had set into his mind. “Um… thank you?” he said tentatively, finally shifting himself into a sitting position. Cloudwillow nodded encouragingly behind Emberstar’s back, and Poolpaw dipped his head. “You’re very welcome,” Emberstar responded. “Yarrowpaw will come to meet you soon. Probably after the next meal, at sunhigh.” He nodded once to each Cloudwillow and Poolpaw and left. Yarrowpaw would come after the sunhigh meal. The sunhigh meal, which would consist of bark, tough roots, and maybe a few bugs. Not that anyone would eat the latter, except maybe the hungriest and most amenable elders, or the young warriors on dares from their friends. Poolpaw always chose the dry leaf scraps; his teeth were still unaccustomed to chewing the hard roots and bark the hunting patrols had gathered, despite after almost a half moon of eating plants. Some cats desperate for the more woody flavors of voles and mice long gone from the forest would pull some pine needles off of the trees with their teeth. Poolpaw chose them occasionally, but he, along with the majority of the Clan cats, believed that if warriors continued to pick at the twigs of the trees sheltering the Clans, the fierce winds of the storm raging around the frozen lake would rush in between the bare branches of the pines and freeze the kits and elders in their nests. So most of them settled for leaves, bark, and roots, leaving the somehow-still-green needles of the conifers shielding the mass of cats that grew slowly smaller with every passing moon. |-|Chapter Two= s p a r r o w s o n g Her plan was in place. Now was the time for it to start working. She was growing impatient, though she wouldn’t have admitted it if there had been anyone for her to admit it to. The apprentice was making slow progress, letting doubt and hopelessness cloud the way to their destiny. Why can they not see that they are pushing the Clans farther along the path to destruction? She leaped to the top of a boulder and gazed up at the pitch-black sky. She found herself wondering that if the stars of the living cats were StarClan warriors, then what did StarClan’s stars represent? Some even higher group of cats that guided StarClan’s destiny? If that theory was true, then wasn’t it possible that there was tier after tier of cats, each concealed in the stars of the world below? She shook her head. Worry over her plan was summoning absurd thoughts to her mind. If there was another group of cats above them, then what good would it do to wonder about them? Why was she even thinking about this? She knew why. Because she wished, deep in her heart, to pray to StarClan, even though she was a member of StarClan. She wanted some cat to guide her along her path, some cat to help her figure out how to pull the Clans out of this eternal storm. Sparrowsong opened her mouth for a soundless scream. If she couldn't even make peace with herself in death, how was she ever going to figure out how to help the Clans? She had to stop pitying herself and do something. The question was, what? It was easy, too easy, to slip inside the apprentice's mind. Sparrowsong's entry into StarClan hadn't decreased her capabilities, and her mental power was as strong as ever. Yarrowpaw yielded to her commands placidly and obediently, never suspecting that someone was infiltrating her mind. Yarrowpaw—or rather, Sparrowsong—trotted up to the medicine cat den just after the sunhigh meal. She had seen Poolpaw and his mentor retire to the den soon after the meal began, and she had heard Emberstar tell Poolpaw when Yarrowpaw would come. wip Category:Fanfictions Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete) Category:Fanfictions (Fanon) Category:Content (Qibli77) Category:Fanfictions (Allegiances)